Q2006: Aborts On Startup

Hi, John.

I don't have an answer for this problem. You might need to reinstall Q2006.

That may be a new record file size reported here. My .qdf file started in

I've done very little downloading of transactions. My guess is that your data file has at least one bad entry. Have you ever validated your file? Recently?

Of course it isn't true! This topic comes up often here and many of us have data files older than that and they are causing us no problems. Quicken support knows better and they have been intentionally misleading users with this line for years. :>(

Of course you would! Any of us would. The good news is that the data files are quite separate from the program files. You could wipe out the Quicken program completely without damaging .qdf and other data files. You could then simply install a new copy of Quicken, start it, and point it to your .qdf and related files. It would load your data into the new program and continue as though nothing had happened. In fact, I've done that a dozen or more times in the past year as I've been beta-testing the forthcoming Windows Vista, the successor to Windows XP. After each install of Vista, I have to install Quicken all over again - and then I just click on my .qdf file and it opens the new copy of Quicken with my data file ready to continue its 16-year history. ; I have been collecting data since 1994 and my .QDF

That may be a new record file size reported here. My .qdf file started in

I've done very little downloading of transactions. My guess is that your data file has at least one bad entry. Have you ever validated your file? Recently?

Of course it isn't true! This topic comes up often here and many of us have data files older than that and they are causing us no problems. Quicken support knows better and they have been intentionally misleading users with this line for years. :>(

Of course you would! Any of us would. The good news is that the data files are quite separate from the program files. You could wipe out the Quicken program completely without damaging .qdf and other data files. You could then simply install a new copy of Quicken, start it, and point it to your .qdf and related files. It would load your data into the new program and continue as though nothing had happened. In fact, I've done that a dozen or more times in the past year as I've been beta-testing the forthcoming Windows Vista, the successor to Windows XP. After each install of Vista, I have to install Quicken all over again - and then I just click on my .qdf file and it opens the new copy of Quicken with my data file ready to continue its 16-year history. ; How do you maintain a cost basis on securities purchased if you have to

I have reinstalled Quicken a number of times. Sometimes it opens the file again but lately it has not.

I recently validated the file with no errors. Right now since the file will not open, the validation will not run either.

If this is not true, why would the Quicken support people be saying it? What could they possible gain from giving out false information? All this does is upset their loyal customer base!

Even after escalation the issue to a manager, I got the same line. He said that "Quicken is a single user program and is only a personal financial manager, not like QuickBooks". He wnet on to say that ?You can't expect to keep more tha 3 years of data with this type of program". What does this mean? If I had a lot of transactions, I may exceed 50MB in 3 years. Does this mean that they purposely do a poor job of programming because it is only a personal finance manager?

If I have to keep spliting my data up every three years, how will I keep acurate cost basis records on my investments, ehich inlude many small lots of stock purchased through a company stock purchase program? They indicated that I would have to look up old purchase information in each of my archived files! This is ludicrous! I can't believe a company like Intuit would create such an inferior product that has a huge customer base! I thought one of the big reasons to use a program like Quicken was so that all of your financial data could be maintained in one place. If I have to maintain multiple files containing three years of data each, I am almost back to using paper records!

I backup multiple times per session. After the last crash, I still couldn't open the file after restoring a backed up file that worked fine the previous day.

Norton Anti-Virus corporate edition 10 is alway running. Ad-Aware and Spy-Bot are run frequently.

You can validate w/o opening file; click on qkn exe file while holding down the ctrl key qkn will then start w/o a file, then >file>file operations>validate. You also might try super-validating the file.

I have tried that procedure but every time I do the Validate, I get a message indicating that the Validation can't be performed and to call customer support.

Thanks, John Novak

In some respects it doesn't seem like the data is the problem. Sometimes the data will load and other times it will not. Are there any known conflicts that would affect Quicken with large data files? Are there any utilities out there that can recover a data file that will not open in Quicken?

Thanks in advance, John Novak

I've had the same problem with Quicken. When this happens, I have to uninstall with qcleanui.exe then re-install. It usually last a couple of weeks before I have to do it again.

That was with Quicken 2006, with 2007 it was to buggy and I had to go back to 2006.

I copied my data file that would not open to a CD. I went to another computer and tried to load the data file. It loaded with no problem. I validated the file and it came back with no error. I copied this file to a CD and tried my first computer. The file would not open. The program aborted. Can someone explain this to me?

I think Sid is on to something. There seems to be a problem with Quicken after running the program for some period of time. The problem doesn't seem to be with the data file because I was able to load it with no problem on a different computer. How can we make Intuit aware of the problem so they can fix it? I can't believe that a Software developer with a program as popular as Quicken wouldn't want to make their product better. Expecially, with competitors like Microsoft Money nipping at their market share. There is even an open source solution called GnuCash that is gaining in popularity. I haven't tried it yet but who knows.

Thanks, John Novak

I tried qcleanui.exe and it didn't do any good, it still aborted on startup. It seems that the problem does not lie with the data. It seems to be with the computer and Quicken program.

Are there any program reminants that remain every time the program is run that build up and eventually cause it to crash?

Are there any internal program limits on the amount of data that can be entered that causes the program to crash?

Is the database system that Quicken uses the problem?

How do we communicate this to Intuit to get the program fixed?

Thanks, John Novak

"qcleanui.exe" doesn't have anything to do with Quicken data ... only to do with Quicken unistallation ... meaning, removing all traces of the installed "software".

I doubt seriously that any non-Intuit employee could answer this usefully.

No. There are a few internal program limits, but, to the best of my knowledge, none that should cause the program to "crash".

That question is almost impossible to answer (even by Intuit), though not likely to be a useful question.

There are a couple of ways to communicate this to Intuit (though I am not certain that you have provided enough information to insure that Intuit can reproduce the problem ... which will make it difficult for them to solve ... assuming that the problem is with Quicken and not with your pc setup).

You can go to the Intuit Help&Support site (which you can access from your Quicken Help) and report a problem. You can also log in to the Intuit Quicken Forums and register, and post your problem in the forums ... my suggestion would be the "Product Feedback and Suggestion" forum.

What types of computer problems would cause Quicken to abort on startup when opening a large data file? Quicken works fine with smaller data files. The larger data files open fine on some computers but not on others. My experience has been that the large data file will open without any problems for a while then without notice will start aborting on startup. No new programs have been added and nothing changed on the computer. Virus and spyware scans are performed daily. To be honest, I am confused, because it doesn't make sense.

Thanks, John Novak

"John" wrote

Doesn't make much sense to me either.

I don't recall ever reading of any verified (reproducible) problem with files just because they were too large.

My guess is that it's less the size of the file, than the contents.

In my personal experience, the only two "causes" of aborts at startup I have experienced were; corrupted data involving the screen Quicken wanted to display at startup, and a corrupted Quicken installation (deduced by the fact that the problem went away when I reinstalled Quicken).

Bad hardware (memory) (any recent changes in your hardware?)

Corrupt OS (registry issues) (any recent changes in your software?)

I had a problem last year that I swore was a Symantec software issue. Turnes out it was a bad memory module.....

Maybe save any data you want and reload your operating system for a clean install, then reload the Quicken software.... Just a thought........

John,

I've had several occurrences with Q2006 that sound similar to yours. Each time I had a problem, it was after some type of failed download. I worked with Q support for several hours on the first failure. The program would crash to desktop whenever I did anything. I uninstalled, and reinstalled several times, and even went back to old data from over a month earlier. Nothing they suggested worked. They finally suggested a reboot. Since I was chatting with support, and they were disconnected. A new chat session started me with another support person who wasn't interested in fixing the problem, just getting rid of me.

I finally found a solution myself that fixed it for a while. I uninstalled Quicken, then deleted the directory "c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\intuit\quicken". Following that, I reinstalled Quicken, and pointed it to my data file. Once again, it worked fine.

Hope this helps.

Regards, Jim

"Jim Henry" wrote

While I have not attempted to prove it, I suspect that the new Quicken uninstall utility (qcleanui.exe), available on new version's CD's, and at Intuit's web site; will take care of the same problem: a corrupted install (though not necessarily by using the same technique).

Strange as it may seem; reinstalls of Quicken actually can "solve" problems ... assuming the "reinstall" removes sufficient traces of the previous install.

John, it could the registry, it could be a bad sector on your hard drive (page file, etc.....quicken is a hugggggggggge memory hog), it could be a failing memory stick, it could be many, many, many things.

The first thing I would do to quickly narrow it down would be to attempt to run your quicken file from a second PC. Do you have that ability........a laptop perhaps, a freinds machine.

Have to load quicken there first, then restore your quicken file. This zeros in on the data file vs. the system.

If you don't have access to a second machine, I'd attempt a second approach.

Awaiting your post.

John wrote:

I just added an additional 512MB of memory bringing it to 1152MB. It did not help. At one time, unloading some programs was enough to get the program to run but that doesn't work any more.

I have done this. What usually happens is that the program will run with my data file for a while and then unexpectedly it will crash.

understand is what changes on a computer after a certain period of time, which causes it to crash! It seems that Quicken corrupts something on that computer making it incompatible with large data files. The strange thing is that smaller data files work on all of these computers with no problem. This leads me to the conclusion that the problem is related to large data files. But large data files run on some computers and not others, but only for a period of time???? Currently, I have four computers that my large data file will not work on and one that it does work on. Go figure! The one computer that works has exactly the same configuration as one that doesn't. The one with the most memory doesn't work with the large data file.

I have unistalled and reinstalled Quicken many times. On a few ocasions this worked, but only for a short period of time. I have installed the program at different locations to no avail. I have even moved the data files with no change.

I just added an additional 512MB of memory bringing it to 1152MB. It did not help. At one time, unloading some programs was enough to get the program to run but that doesn't work any more.

I have done this. What usually happens is that the program will run with my data file for a while and then unexpectedly it will crash.

understand is what changes on a computer after a certain period of time, which causes it to crash! It seems that Quicken corrupts something on that computer making it incompatible with large data files. The strange thing is that smaller data files work on all of these computers with no problem. This leads me to the conclusion that the problem is related to large data files. But large data files run on some computers and not others, but only for a period of time???? Currently, I have four computers that my large data file will not work on and one that it does work on. Go figure! The one computer that works has exactly the same configuration as one that doesn't. The one with the most memory doesn't work with the large data file.

I have unistalled and reinstalled Quicken many times. On a few ocasions this worked, but only for a short period of time. I have installed the program at different locations to no avail. I have even moved the data files with no change.

Odd as this might sound, have you loaded any drivers or other programs which included drivers prior to the problem occuring? My husband has had problems with several programs crashing in the past month (especially when running large data files) and wasn't able to figure out what had changed. Even an uninstall and reinstall didn't take care of the issues. Then, last night, I checked programs running at startup to see if anything looked odd there. Turns out he updated a printer driver a little over a month ago which loads components at startup. Unfortunately, it also left the old driver intact and loading as well. As soon as we disabled startup of the old driver and rebooted, everything worked fine .. no problems with the files or data size at all. Since the programs that were crashing didn't involve printing at all, we had never looked for that connection, but there was obviously some conflict involved.

Deb

How do you disable startup programs?

Thanks, John Novak

Hi, John.

Start by finding out WHICH programs are set to run at startup. There are several places to look, unfortunately, so let's start with the easy one.

I don't recall if you told us which Windows version you are running. Assuming WinXP: Click Start | Programs | Startup. This should list all the programs in your Startup folder. Delete (one at a time) any that look suspicious, then reboot and test. This doesn't delete the program, of course, but only the shortcut that starts the program, so simply renaming the shortcut won't work; it will still look for the same executable. One trick that works is to create a new folder in the Programs listing and name it something like "No Start", then drag the suspicious program from Startup to No Start. If you find out that you do need this program, just drag it back. Or Restore it from the Recycle Bin if you deleted it.

Other ways to run a program - or not - at startup include MSconfig and a few locations in the Registry. If the simple suggestion doesn't work, post back.

RC